Open Past and Present
by Pale18
Summary: Kid Flash tries to figure out the secret of Jinx's backstory and her real name. What is discovered is that Jinx only subtly hides her Hindu culture in her daily life.


A.N.) Enjoy. If you don't, I apologize.

Disclaimer: Formalities. I do not own Teen Titans.

Open Past and Future

_Chapter 1 (Prologue):_ Waiting for Godot

Kamya stared at her statue of Ganesha, and the statue stared back.

She knelt at the his pedestal in her room, admiring how the humanoid god with the head of the elephant sat so dignified and powerful, one leg draping over his throne and the other tucked to his stomach. The material was gold, and bright jewels to decorate his headpiece and robes. It shined, even during the darkest hour. The essence of holiness that knotted in the back of her head that made her feel that her statue was it. This was Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, God of Beginnings, Lord of Learning, right in front of her. He was there with her, be in spirit and loving. It had everything she ever needed, and she would bow to him for the rest of her life.

She loved Ganesha more than anything in the entire world.

He had spoken to her back when she was small, barely old enough to read. Benevolent, intuitively wise, venerable… who could not be charmed by such a deity.

Her name was fortuitous, he once said to her. Holding truth and strength.

There was destined to be losses as there was a world to gain. A myriad of knowledge and wisdom was offered to her, as long as she listened for him or if she called for him. He told her stories about the deity of the monkey, Hanuman, defending the world, braving battle, and joked that to deal with him would require plenty of patience and open-mindedness. He said her spirit reminded him of his dear mother's inner beauty and would ask if she believed him.

Dawning the brightest white and yellow robes the daughter born from a seamstress out of wedlock, she tried to embody such brightness and light reflecting off of the Great Son of Shiva. Shamed that her skin was such a tanned shade, eyes the darkest shade possible for brown, and hair an onyx black, she wanted to have color. Yet that color was ignored by Ganesha; it made her wonder if color really had anything to do with light and darkness, as strange as that sounded in her head.

_Answer me, please,_ she prayed, bowing to the statue. _Is that thought foolish? What can you say to me? I will always listen._

Kamya waited in her cold, beaten shack of the shrine shack till Ganesha's statue no longer sparkled in the sun, but in the glow of the moon. This was the process repeated every day since he suddenly ceased to speak perhaps a year or two ago. He never said why. Everything just became quiet.

She thought for a moment with her forehead pressed to the floorboards whining at the pressure.

_What does my name mean?_

_I forgot._

_Please tell me again… please?_

He still did not answer. Only a sense of tiredness was pushing on her shoulders.

Stricken with heartbreak, Kamya looked to the statue, completely offended.

She defied her mother to declare she'd never marry.

She left her city life, school, and friends to pray in the desolate forest outside that civilized beehive called a city.

She stayed in this shack that once belonged to merchant that would sell his game once and a while in the city to dedicate herself to properly worship dear Ganesha, despite knowing that the reason this shack is abandoned is because the merchant had been eaten were she sat by an intruding tiger.

She scrubbed the blood from the floorboards, tried to dust every day, and broke off pieces of the wooden wall to create a stage for Him to be set on his pedestal.

Clenching finger nails scraped the wooden floor she had been kneeling on for hours.

What more could she do for him?

Ganesha sat on his throne, peering down at the young Kamya. She could feel a vibration of disappointment from that pedestal. Reverence was not enough to please him? Her complete devotion to his voice and sacrifice of her own was not enough for him?

Rash and frustrated, Kamya ran outside of the shrine in hope to healthily exercise the body and soul. Maybe Ganesha found her negativity of his righteous decision to never bestow his silky charisma on a commoner like her unbecoming.

Her lone shack that she converted to a shrine room for her Ganesha was located in a thin forest. Kamya feared the dark and all shadows but tonight, the moon overlapped everything in veil. She would go home tonight, sleep, and return after school.

Finally stopping when her lung felt ready to burst out in flames, she noticed she had ran closer to the mountains than the town in the opposite direction. It was her own stupidity, she sighed. It was bad luck. Everything went south hence forth on the walk back to her shrine shack. The moonlight was then dimmed by clouds, causing her to walk into trees and trip over roots.

It hurt, but the journey was peaceful, and she was still alive. It seemed much more endearing that she was alive in a quiet forest. The locus buzzing in the distance. Humming…

In a trance, Kamya did not notice a snake sink down from a branch inches from her face. It lurched and wrapped itself around her arms and neck, completely immobilizing her.

She was abstained from screaming with the high dose of adrenaline sinking into her veins. Her heart was aching and her stomach punched up to her chest. Like she was dying.

_Help me, dear Ganesha,_ she cried in prayers.

The snake lulled its head slowly, rocking the frightened child with its very gazed. Soon, Kamya was swaying her head and gaze along with the snake's. Soothing and enchanting.

"Are you calm?" the snake said in the voice of her mother. "Child?"

Kamya heat beat fastened again. _Let me go…_ she only thought.

The long snake tightened her grip on the frightened prisoner's thin torso. "Well spoken!" it hummed. "As expected from a strong follower, but why for Ganesha? My lady cannot sway followers of the ultimate gods, like Shiva, Braham, or Vishnu, but Ganesha is so lowly of the deities, Manasa wonders what it is about him that makes you so… loyal!"

Kamya learned of Manasa, the snake goddess, from Ganesha. A vain demi-goddess that was only pleasant to her admirers and devotees, mostly consisting of actual snakes, but was praised as being the embodiment of motherhood and grace. No matter how mean she talked to others, she cured deadly disease with her venom and was a symbol for death and rebirth together. Ganesha said that she only hated the prejudice and wanted to be known for her how good she could be.

Bided, her lungs were crushed. She could not say a thing.

"I will drink from you, and give you a gift in return," said the snake before revealing its curved fangs and biting into the big bloodline in her neck. The link between her mind and heart was invaded, and Ganesha, her protector, her guidance, said nothing.

The fangs ripped from the limp capture, blood lightly spattering on its fruitful prey. "I will renew you!" it shrieked. "Manasa loves all her children, need not worry.

"Ganesha seems not to mind my lady rewarding you with a burden." With that last declaration, Kamya was release to drop to the dirt.

For hours, Kamya struggled to control the hyperventilating that came when she felt her skin from scalp to feet burn; she felt like everything was peeling away. A reptile shedding the dead layer cocooning its real exterior. _It's not real…_ she thought. _It's not…_

Picturing the Ganesha statue. Consolidated into a citadel of wisdom, intelligence and dignity. She remembered on the statue that he always had the halting signal up with his right hand, assuming a promise of good luck in his advice. Kamya took that knowledge and waited out the pain.

When she recollected herself enough to see straight, she saw her skin was so pale and her long, dark hair had pink. That… was cruel… The color of placid happiness was to plague her when nothing about this situation was calming. What an insult.

The irrepressible stress consumed her aura and erupted into branches suddenly breaking just to cause her misfortune. The birds were dropping dead like rocks as she fled to the lake to see she had become a disfigured monster. Her once dark brown eyes were denude to mirror the snake's, with a thin, vertical pupil and glow of a sharp pink iris. She was freakish, abnormal. The distress escaped her aura again and caused the water to boil, killing all the fish under neither.

For some time, this new outcast sat. And thought. About everything that was said and what was not. What she wanted to say and what she regretted never saying. Manasa had given the gift of effecting things beyond the common mortal. However, this was forced on her without any say and merely for Manasa's own hunger for love and devotion. Was that selfish or understandable, or both, or neither? Kamya felt she understood but still felt so unlucky that it was her devotion that caught The Snake Goddess's interest.

Though she gave up on the realities of everyday India and the future, she gave it up knowing she was still able to go back and reclaim it one day. Now, with such a flamboyant appearance, no one would allow her be one of the other Hindu people just a few miles away. Everything was gone forever, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

Ask Ganesha for guidance? What was the point? He would not answer her before, he would not pity her now.

Angry at the injustice, her stress converted to leaking dark magic. Her roar was truculent, demanding equal respect of Ganesha and any god that lived in any heart. The clemency to tolerate alienation was tired. Surmount with her rage, stress leaked, resulting in random trees to plunder over, squishing unlucky animals right on the mark.

"Unfortunate…" she whispered, humoring feeling remorseful.

Ganesha had forsaken her completely. Never answering her pleas for acknowledgement was one thing, but he ignored her in a time of need.

Why… why do this to her?

"I renounce my reliance on you!" screamed the newly no-named girl, choking on tears, ordering herself to let him go. "My beginning…"

Ganesha, from his pedestal on the stage, saw her run off into the mountains, never looking behind. A scintilla of the previous Kamya, the one willing to be loyal and to love was there. It was waiting for the true worthy one. The one who deserved such capability; Ganesha knew that deserving one was not his being. "To be devoted to was not the job of a deity," his charismatic voice echoed against the shake walls.

She was resentful now, but Ganesha knew. "She'll be fine."

He could not have been more proud.

Why wait for the friend who never came?


End file.
